Perfect Strangers
by Hoshi7
Summary: A love-struck Angel has returned to Sunnydale...but this time, it's not Buffy who holds the key to his heart.
1. Perfect Strangers prelude

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story; they are the property of the networks on which they are shown and Joss Whedon, the show's creator. And probably loads of other people; you get the general idea. Any lyrics in this story are from the song "Perfect," by The Smashing Pumpkins. I am not them, either.   
Secondary Disclaimer: This story is set in some vague time between the 4th and 7th seasons, but Tara never died. Anything that may have happened on "Angel" is not included here, because I haven't been able to see that show beyond the first season.  
Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!   
  
  
  
_Angel, you know it's not the end/ we'll always be good friends/ the letters have been sent...._

Buffy stared up at the ceiling. The soft light of a street lamp filtered through tree branches and cast shadows on the walls of her bedroom. It was one of those summer evenings when blue seemed to linger in the sky forever, and extra daylight kept nocturnal creatures at bay and gave the slayer a holiday of sorts. A few summers ago, Buffy would have welcomed this phenomenon, but now the lack of work just gave her more time to ponder things she'd rather not have thought about at all. The music drowned out her thoughts for a moment, and she could still feel its rhythm as she drifted off to sleep.

It was the same dream as always, the same images that had slowly begun etching themselves indelibly into her unconscious mind over the past few months. Buffy was lying in a room that, in the typical manner of dreams, represented her own but was not quite the same. She draped a thin blanket over her naked body and propped herself up on her elbows. There were footsteps, coming up the stairs and then down the hallway-- confident, masculine footsteps. She knew it was Angel; it had to be. He had realised that they were meant to be together after all, and had come here to spend thenight in her arms, where he belonged. Buffy ran her fingers through her hair, and smiled as the door opened to reveal....Spike.

"Come on, love," he said, lips pursed in his signature smirk, "you didn't really think that your darling Angelus had lost his senses completely, did you? He knows you're nothing but trouble, just like I do."

Before Buffy could respond, another figure appeared in the background, a shadow in the darkened corridor. A pair of muscular arms wrapped themselves around Spike's waist, and a familiar voice mumbled something quietly in his ear. Buffy knew who it was before she even saw his face. _So he must have turned evil again,_ she thought. _How else could he be doing something like this?_ But as his face emerged into the dim light of her bedroom, she could see in his eyes that he was still in possession of his soul.

They stood in the doorway, kissing each other gently but with a passion that was undeniable. Angel lowered his head and his lips met Spike's; even from her vantage point on the bed, Buffy could see as Angel slipped his tongue inside the other vampire's willing mouth. She shouted at them to stop, but they seemed to be deaf to anything outside of themselves; she tried to rise from her bed, but found that she was glued to the spot.

Buffy woke in the middle of the night, heart pounding, as she so often did after having a prophetic dream. This dream, however, was no prophecy; Buffy knew that what she had seen was not a warning of a possible future. This was the present. Buffy tried to block out the memory of this dream, tried to rid her mind of the image of Angel and Spike locked in an embrace. She thought about how things had been just a few short years ago, back when Spike had first come to town and Angel had helped her fight against his evil plans. It was love that had kept him in Sunnydale then, too....but back then, it had been Buffy that he had loved. 


	2. Summer School

Giles stood at the head of the dining room table, arms crossed. "Ahem," he coughed pointedly. Buffy sat hunched over in a chair, gazing fixedly at the table. "Buffy?" Giles said, a look of concern coming over his handsome face. "Are you quite sure you're all right?"

"Uh..." Buffy snapped back into reality. "Sorry, I was just thinking about, um," her eyes searched the room frantically, looking for an excuse, "about, um....curtains! You know me, always much with the happy homemaking."

Giles raised an eyebrow but said nothing. "Very well, then," he continued. "As you are all aware," he said, glancing around at the rest of the Scooby Gang who were assembling around the table, breakfasts in hand, "there is not a great deal of demonic or vampiric activity in the summer, even here in Sunnydale. Therefore, I thought it might be wise to utilise this time to study up on various demon species, so you can identify them on sight." He dropped a stack of ancient books on the table, where they landed with a resounding thud and emitted a cloud of dust. Everyone but Willow groaned audibly.

"So," Giles said, pretending as though he hadn't noticed the distinct lack of enthusiasm with which his suggestion had been received, "perhaps Willow, Xander, Tara, and myself can approach this from an academic angle, and Buffy can train with someone who has had....err...personal experience with many types of demons."

Buffy stared up at him, with an expression of dread on her face. "Wait....Giles.....you don't mean that you want me to--" "Yes, quite," Giles replied, averting his eyes from her pleading gaze. "Spike has agreed to help with your training."

If there was one thing that sounded less appealing to Buffy than the general idea of spending a beautiful summer with her nose stuck in a moldy old book filled with pictures of demons, it was this. The others didn't know what she did; they knew about Angel and Spike's bizarre love-hate relationship, but none of them knew about the extent to which it had been swinging toward the "love" end of the spectrum as of late. None of them had been in love with Angel or been wracked with humiliation after inexplicable bouts of mindless sex with Spike. None of them had been having those dreams.

_Oh well,_ Buffy thought to herself. _If nothing else, maybe I'll accidentally stake him in one of our little practise sessions._

  
_I know/ we're just like old friends/ we just can't pretend/ that lovers make amends..._  
Buffy trudged slowly through the empty cemetery in the direction of Spike's crypt. Only the sound of her footsteps disturbed the otherwise perfect quiet of the night. The cemetery was completely still, utterly silent. There was not another moving thing, living or dead, within its gates. It was almost peaceful, and Buffy might have paused to revel in this unusual state of things and notice the way moonlight reflected off of the tombstones, if it had not been for what awaited her at her destination.

Giles knew that she and Spike were not on the best of terms, but he had no idea as to the reasons why. Brilliant as he might be when it came to facts and figures and ancient leather-bound books, Giles was not the brightest when it came to the subject of relationships. He knew about Buffy and Angel, of course, but he had no idea that Buffy and Spike had been lovers-- if you could even call what they did "making love"-- and he had no clue about Angel and Spike's past together, or about their present entanglements.

With a heavy sigh, Buffy approached the crypt. She heard voices coming from within-- unmistakably those of her two undead ex-boyfriends. Gripping her crossbow tightly, she flung open the door and shot a sarcastic glance at the two vampires, who turned to look at her.

"All right, Spike," Buffy said without a trace of emotion in her voice. "Giles said he's heard rumours about some new demon gang that's looking to set up shop in Sunnydale....the Turtle-something--"

"Tulrakhan?" Spike replied. "Yeah, met up with some of those nasty little buggers a while back. Only way to get rid of 'em is to stab them right in th'heart....problem is, they can turn into shapless blobs of goo at will, so it's a bit tricky to figure where exactly you're supposed to--"

Now it was Buffy's turn to interrupt. "Fine," she said, "show me how, then." She stared pointedly at Angel, who began to button up his shirt and gather up his belongings off the floor.

"I'll go out for a while," Angel said quietly to Spike. "Play nice, all right?" He grabbed his coat and walked swiftly out the door, managing to avoid looking Buffy in the eye.

"Right then," Spike said as soon as Angel had closed the door behind him. "Let's get started, shall we?" He set a large sword on the ground.."Let's pretend that this bag of flour is a Tulrakhan, and when you stab it--" he motioned for Buffy to pick up the sword and thrust it into the centre of the sack--"it turns into a bloody pile of slop. Trick is, unless you've found the heart on the first try, you've got just a few seconds to find it in this mess before the thing gets at your feet and paralyses you."

Trying to remember the anatomical diagrams she'd half-heartedly glanced at this afternoon, Buffy struck the flour-sack dummy a bit left of centre. The flour poured out onto the floor, and Buffy stabbed at the formless lump until she heard a satisfying 'pop' and pulled out her sword, upon the tip of which sat a now-empty balloon. "Clever," she said to Spike, "but is it really that easy?"

"Well," Spike said, clearing his throat, "when they get angry, it's a quite different story." He crossed the room and returned bearing what looked like a wall of pillows, hastily sewn together and with protruding claws. Donning a protective vest, he held the pillows in front of him. "They get a bit bigger when they're sent into a rage," he said. "Try finding the heart now, eh?"

Buffy stabbed at the centre of the pillow-dummy, but Spike was too quick. She lunged at him again, still hitting nothing but empty air. On the third try, she finally succeeded in spearing the outermost edge of one pillow. As a few feathers floated toward the dusty floor, Spike shot her a quizzical glance. "Bit off your game tonight, aren't you, love?"

"Don't--" Buffy lowered the sword. "Don't call me that."

A satisfied smile appeared on Spike's face. "You didn't really come here tonight to appease Giles, did you?" He said.

Buffy shook her head.

"Thought not," Spike replied. "Well then, I think I know what you're really after. I'll tell you about the night I first met Angelus..." 


End file.
